I Was Taken by the Female Lead After Transmigrating into a Book - Chapter 101

When Bai Xue was mentioned, Li Ke became a silent blockhead. He sulkily turned to the side and stopped talking to Bai Feifei.

Bai Feifei didn’t talk to him either. She lowered her head and continued looking for an anthill. She broke off a small piece of the preserved plum candy she had been holding for a long time and placed it on a vacant red brick, waiting.

But Bai Feifei didn’t get to see Huo Wu today. She filmed all her scenes—tutoring a student, wandering through the market, skillfully cutting vegetables, cooking, and living alone—until her head was spinning. All the way to the hotel, she couldn’t meet Huo Wu. She couldn’t even see the shadow of any of the assistants Huo Wu usually had with her on the crew.

“Didn’t she text you?” Fu Xiaoxiao crunched on a potato chip and, after a while, said, “When I went back to the hotel today, I think I saw a group of people rush out of the room next door with a pile of luggage.”

Bai Feifei’s scenes today were basically shot in two or three takes, and it was rarely her own fault when a retake was needed. But the schedule was too full, and time was so tight that she didn’t even have time to use her phone.

If Fu Xiaoxiao hadn’t said anything, she wouldn’t have remembered that such a thing as a phone existed. After being on the crew for so long, it was more reliable to find someone to ask a question than to contact them by phone because people were often hard to reach. Everyone was busy and could easily miss a call.

Bai Feifei quickly took out her phone and saw several unread messages on the chat box she had pinned for Huo Wu.

After reading them, Bai Feifei’s face was filled with worry. “She said she’s going to a closed training camp to lose weight for three days.”

Fu Xiaoxiao didn’t take it seriously. “Three days will pass quickly.”

How much weight could she lose in three days? Bai Feifei had no concept of this, but she was very worried. For regular weight loss, Li Ke could give them enough time, like Bai Feifei’s last time, when she lost about fifteen pounds in half a month. But the next scenes were back-to-back, and filming in Luo Shui City was about to begin, so there wasn’t much time left for Huo Wu.

She had to lose weight successfully in a very short amount of time to keep up with the filming progress of everyone else.

The messages she sent now might not even be received by Huo Wu. Bai Feifei felt uneasy about the words “closed training camp” and still sent many text bubbles… and even more emojis than text bubbles.

The emojis were numerous and consecutive, and they could even form a story on their own. The emojis plus the captions looked like a TV show.

She was like a wilting flower, completely melting into the couch. She held her phone, constantly scrolling through the conversation with Huo Wu, then clicked into her Moments, and then switched to other social media platforms.

After a while, Bai Feifei sighed and said sadly, “I’m so sad. I feel the sadness of a newly married couple who are forced to live in different places.”

Fu Xiaoxiao came up to her happily. “Then I’ll sleep with you these few days?”

Bai Feifei shook her head. “I’ll just sleep with Bo-Er-Ba and Little Cutie.”

Fu Xiaoxiao pouted. “You’d rather sleep with dogs than with me!”

Even though she said that, Fu Xiaoxiao wasn’t really insisting on staying with Bai Feifei. After teasing her for a bit, she left, telling her to get some rest and film the remaining scenes well over the next three days.

Bai Feifei washed up listlessly. It was completely different from the past few days when Huo Wu was there, when the whole room was filled with her lively pitter-patter. When she came out, no one rushed to greet her, no one hugged her, and no one talked or kissed her.

“This is an annoying feeling.” Bai Feifei’s hair was still wet, but she didn’t want to blow-dry it at all. She wrapped it in a towel and waited for it to air dry, her eyes on the ceiling light. She said to herself, “It feels like I’m back to when it was just me.”

The two dogs and one cat were quietly nestled in their favorite spots, sleeping. Bai Feifei didn’t continue talking after her last sentence. She lay there for a while, then got up to read the script, but she couldn’t read a single word.

She scratched her head and, after a while, threw the script onto the table in frustration.

Li Ke was wrong after all.

Li Ke said she wasn’t affected by her emotions, but that was because Huo Wu was by her side. Huo Wu was very good at helping her transition from her character to herself the moment the camera stopped rolling, making her truly feel that she wasn’t in a lonely world where she was all alone.

Now that Huo Wu wasn’t here, her state overlapped and coincided with Fu Sang’s state in the show. What was even more fatal was that Fu Sang’s current state was very similar to her own after she was forced to leave this world.

Huo Wu was not here now.

Bai Feifei became miserably aware of this reality. She walked around the room for a long time, almost obsessively, and finally confirmed that in this room, and even in this hotel, she could not find Huo Wu.

This realization made her feel an unprecedented sense of helplessness, and this feeling came so suddenly that she herself found it strange.

As she was zoning out, there was a knock on the door from the outside. Bai Feifei turned her head blankly and stared at the door for a while. It wasn’t until the third time she heard a rhythmic knock that she slowly walked over and opened the door.

Outside was the hotel butler, pushing a cart with exquisite meals covered on top. Seeing Bai Feifei, he revealed a gentle smile and said, “Hello, Ms. Bai. Ms. Huo has reserved meals for you for the next three days.”

Bai Feifei blinked, feeling a surge of vitality coming from an unknown part of her body, finally gathering in her heart.

She moved aside, and the butler prepared the things and left. Before he left, he confirmed the time to come and clean up, but he didn’t tell Bai Feifei what she would be eating next or what would be arranged for later.

But he did tell Bai Feifei that Huo Wu was very much looking forward to her feedback.

It seemed to add a bit of an inexplicable expectation.

Bai Feifei happily took out her phone and tirelessly opened the conversation with Huo Wu. She watched the green message bubbles pop up as they were sent, and she also began to look forward to what Huo Wu would reply after she heard all these messages.

—She would probably click on them one by one, listen to all of them, and then reply to all of them one by one.

This was Huo Wu’s unique affection and patience for her.

Over the next three days, Bai Feifei’s state while filming was also very good. Li Ke was a little surprised and squatted down next to Bai Feifei during a break. He said, “I thought your state would be affected with Huo Wu being pulled away for a few days. I was even prepared to have a heart-to-heart with you.”

He sized her up for a bit and said, “But it looks like your state is even better when you’re resting than when you’re filming.”

Bai Feifei gave him a gloomy look and asked for the umpteenth time in the past three days, “So what exactly is that closed training camp?”

Li Ke rubbed the stubble on his chin, glanced at the time, and this time didn’t hide it anymore. He said, “It’s what it sounds like. You go in for devilish training to lose weight in a short amount of time, and then you come out.”

“Then why can’t she even use her phone?” Bai Feifei complained, not understanding. “Can’t a person get some mental motivation when they’re in so much pain?”

“Looking at a phone will only wear down a person’s motivation,” Li Ke said, giving her a look. “She’ll be out tonight. Keep your state up, and you two will have a scene to film tonight.”

He paused for a moment and said very seriously, “Control your emotions at this moment and don’t slow her down in her filming progress, understand?”

Li Ke rarely spoke so seriously, but Bai Feifei nodded very seriously.

What Huo Wu had gone through in the high-intensity weight loss over the past three days was probably something most people couldn’t bear. In that state, she would have to maintain her condition and keep up with the filming progress the moment she came out. If she was dragged down by a co-star, it would be a very fatal blow to her.

Under the pressure of physical strength, energy, and emotions, something could go wrong.

Bai Feifei was nervous, and she reopened the script that she had almost worn out from reading over the past few days.

But no matter how much she prepared, the moment she saw Huo Wu in person, Bai Feifei was still stunned.

In just three days, Huo Wu had lost a lot of weight. Even from a distance, it was clearly visible. She was still wearing the black workout clothes from the training camp, with only a wide, breathable jacket wrapped around her. She looked like she could be blown away by a gust of wind. She stood on the outer edge of the crowd, a tired smile on her face, talking to the staff.

Not long after, Huo Wu said goodbye to the staff. Her makeup artist received a command to go over and confirm the makeup and styling time and content with her. Bai Feifei was far away, clutching the script eagerly, but she didn’t want to go up and disturb her at this moment.

Huo Wu’s makeup room was in a long-vacant delivery station on the first floor of a residential building. The shelves left behind by the previous tenant happened to serve as a storage rack for the costume and makeup artists. But since it was a modern drama, there was more than enough space, and the extra shelves were also used to store props for the other actresses on the crew.

Bai Feifei’s eyes followed Huo Wu until her figure disappeared at the entrance to the building’s hallway. Only then did she reluctantly look away, but she was no longer in the mood to read the script.

“Honey, you have a call!” Fu Xiaoxiao ran over excitedly, clutching her phone and a stack of contract work that Bai Xue had given her. She had a few black ‘whiskers’ drawn on her face. “That person called!”

‘That person’ usually referred to Huo Wu.

Bai Feifei ‘whooshed’ up from her chair and answered the phone that had been ringing for a long time.

On the other end of the line was Huo Wu’s voice, which was clearly tired but still gentle. The moment Bai Feifei answered, she realized she was uselessly crying a little.

“Want to come see me?” Huo Wu said on the phone. “I’m a little tired and want a hug.”

Bai Feifei’s eyes were a little watery, but she held back. After blinking a few times, she said, “I’m on my way.”

Huo Wu said on the phone, “Is it far? Are you tired?”

“I’m not tired.” Bai Feifei was running fast and was a little out of breath. It was hard to tell if she was being coy or complaining. “Don’t talk anymore.”

Huo Wu chuckled softly, just said, “Mhm,” and then really didn’t say anything else.

Bai Feifei kept holding her phone and jogging until she reached the entrance of Huo Wu’s makeup room. The door was ajar, and there was no conversation inside. It was very quiet.

It was so quiet inside that it seemed like the only sound was her own breathing.

Bai Feifei said into the phone, “I’m coming in?”

Huo Wu’s voice came from the phone and the room almost at the same time: “Okay.”